Whole Wheat Cheese Raviolis with Apricot Squash

These are positively delicious and well worth the effort to make them! I find making pasta by hand can be daunting, but wheat pasta is actually very easy to roll out by hand, I'm not sure I will ever go back to making pasta with white flour.








Pasta:
2 cups %100 percent whole wheat flour
1 tsp. salt
3 eggs
water

Filling:
Low Fat Ricotta Cheese (or Ricotta Cheese made with part skim milk)

Sauce:
1 acorn squash, halved, seeded and baked until tender
1 cup low fat plain yogurt
1 tbsp. honey
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
water

To make the pasta, mix the salt and flour in a bowl. Hollow out the center of the flour and add in the eggs. There is no fat or oil in this pasta, I find it is completely unnecessary. Add an 1/8 cup of water, and begin whisking the eggs and water. Work your way out, incorporating flour bit by bit. Add water as needed, until the dough forms a very firm ball. Cover and let sit for 15 minutes or so.
Once the dough has rested, roll out a fourth at a time onto a lightly floured surface, to about a millimeter thick. Place a tbsp. of filling for each ravioli, every 2 inches. Roll out another piece of pasta, lay it on top and gently press it down. I used a cookie cutter to cut out rounds, but you can use a knife to cut out the pastas if you want. Add the raviolis to a pot of rapidly boiling water and cook for six minutes. When the pastas float, they are done.
The sauce is also very easy and also healthy. Peel your squash halves and pulp the meat of the squash with a potato masher, or use a hand mixer. Add in the yogurt and mix until well incorporated, then add water a little at a time until you reach the consistency you want, salt and pepper to taste.
I will admit, I was worried that the combination of the yogurt and squash would taste odd, but I was really surprised at how well it went especially with the pasta and the cheese. Like they were made to go together!